As usual, Luis Enrique likes to surprise everyone during PSG matches. It started this Sunday morning with the discovery of the Parisian group and the decision of the Spanish coach to exclude Randal Kolo Muani and Milan Skriniar from the scoresheet against OL. Then, the former coach decided to offer a different eleven against Lyon with a central hinge Beraldo-Pacho but above all an attack composed of Désiré Doué, Ousmane Dembélé and Kang-in Lee with Barcola on the bench. On paper, we therefore expected to see an offensive animation again with the South Korean international in false number 9.
But then, Luis Enrique never does simple things. And this time, he decided to place Kang-in Lee on the right, leaving the center of the field to Ousmane Dembélé and obviously the left lane to Désiré Doué. A risky choice on paper, but which completely confused the Lyon defense. From the start of the match, we felt the two central players, Niakhaté and Mata, were hesitant about marking. Same story for Matic who found himself with the former Barcelona player regularly behind his back. Ousmane Dembélé, in this role, had monstrous spaces and caused great pain with his movements. “I had the opportunity, when I played at FC Barcelona, to play as number 9. Afterwards, with the change of position that we constantly make in this team, the winger can find himself number 9 and vice versa, so that don’t change anything » explained Dembélé in the mixed zone.
Luis Enrique got it right
It was he who quickly opened the scoring (8th) while being entirely alone in the area. Meanwhile, on his bench, Luis Enrique seemed very calm as if he had complete confidence in his tactics. Accustomed to being active and sometimes nervous in his zone, Luis Enrique waited at least 20 minutes before getting up and supervising his players. At that time, PSG was already leading 2-0 since Vitinha had converted a penalty obtained by Doué. Above all, Paris was walking around quietly and had some pretty crazy spaces in the heart of the game. And Pierre Sage’s Lyon couldn’t find the solution. “Everything that happens on the pitch is the players who do it, because the coach cannot be on the pitch. But it depends on the match and the opponent. If we have transitions to play, it’s because the opponent dares to press us. If he presses us high, it creates spaces and we then try to take advantage of them. Usually, this is not the case because the majority of teams do not press us and wait for us in a low block, which makes it impossible to play in transitions. Depending on what happens during the match, we try to hurt the opponent and take advantage and gain an advantage.explained Luis Enrique at a press conference before continuing.
“Lyon, who were on a very good run, decided to press us. They had the initiative and the courage to press us. When we are in this situation, with many players leaving their camp, spaces are created and our objective is to exploit them. When there are spaces, we take advantage of them. When there isn’t one, we have to stay active with the ball, circulate the ball and create numerical superiorities to find spaces. But it always depends on the opponent. Our intention is always to dominate the match. How the opponent occupies space varies depending on the team. » But there was a moment of doubt on the part of PSG, when OL had reduced the gap. Moment during which Luis Enrique sometimes got annoyed as he knows how to do so well. But that’s all. In the second half, the former Barça coach continued his tactical masterclass with relevant changes. The newcomers Barcola and Ramos were decisive since it was on a poorly returned shot from the first that the second scored the break goal at the end of the match (3-1). “The coach’s plan? It’s as usual, each match we have details from the coach depending on the opponent, we respected the tactical plan, it’s a good victory against a good team. explained Vitinha after the meeting. If recent poor performances have often been attributed to the choices of Luis Enrique, this Parisian victory is clearly that of the Spaniard as well. He won his tactical battle and Pierre Sage could only observe the damage.
